Regular field and tenurial arrangements in Holderness,Yorkshire

In this paper I shall argue that in a small district of Yorkshire, details of field form and holding layout in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century townships suggest that these came into being as a result of a phase of reorganization and planning. I shall also consider the possible period of this reorganization, and discuss the circumstances that may have been involved.An approach of this kind inevitably raises the problem of the extent to which landscape forms can be used as evidence of their modes of origin. It is fashionable to argue that an emphasis on morphological aspects overlooks functional and change-producing mechanisms in field systems, that such an approach tends to assume stability of form where positive evidence for change is lacking, and that identical forms can originate in different ways and at different times. On the other hand, landscape forms are often the only clues to phases of development that occurred before documentary evidence was of sufficient quantity and quality to reveal them. The value of the methodology has been particularly well demonstrated in Sweden, where more recent landscapes have been used as the basis for the identification of earlier generations of field patterns and settlements. ^[1] In England, the approach has been most successfully applied to the analysis of settlement forms. Both Roberts and Sheppard have convincingly demonstrated that an examination of regular village plans in northern England can reveal evidence of their early development. ^[2] This paper is an attempt to use a similar technique in the study of field morphology and tenurial patterns.     

The production of penicillin in wartime China and Sino-American definitions of “normal” microbiology

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the history of domestic penicillin production in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, focusing on the work of the National Epidemic Prevention Bureau (NEPB) to identify, isolate, cultivate, and extract the drug. This work took place just as the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China discussed plans to establish an American pilot plant for Chinese penicillin manufacture, which would directly transfer technologies and personnel from the US to China. While American advisers saw the basic conditions of wartime China as actively obstructing the highly technical project of penicillin production, researchers at the NEPB relied crucially upon that same local environment to identify useful molds and find substitutions for key materials in successfully manufacturing penicillin in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China.     

Feminist and gender geographies in Ireland

Abstract

This report discusses feminist and gender geographies in Ireland. We first focus on the ways in which gender constructs Irish geographies, updating numbers of women in academic positions across Ireland. This shows that women are increasingly in secure positions, but remain under-represented in more senior positions. We then turn to research. We discuss how femininities and women, and masculinities and men, have been addressed in Irish geographies. The focus on femininities and women is crucial given recent strides towards gender and reproductive justice. We then briefly summarise sexualities work. The report concludes by arguing that Ireland not only has vibrant gender/feminist geographical scholarship, it also has significant potential for emerging research and developing new theorisations and research agendas.     

Covid-19 is an unnatural disaster: Hope in revelatory moments of crisis

Abstract

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic has closed borders, grounded planes, quarantined more than half of the world’s population, triggered anxiety en masse, and shaken global capitalism to its core. Scholars of the political ecology of disasters have sought to denaturalize so-called “natural” disasters by demonstrating their uneven consequences. Work in the political ecology of health similarly accounts for how risk of illness and disease are socio-economically mediated. While this scholarship has demonstrated the need to contextualize the unequal fallout from ecological and health disasters in ways that reveal the festering wounds of structural inequality, we know much less about how hope is cultivated in moments of crisis. The current revelatory moment of the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to find hope in the rubble through the deconstruction of framings of crisis as “error” and by homing in on the current and potential role of tourism to contribute to a more socially and environmentally just society. This reframing the pandemic as an "unnatural" disaster opens new debates at the intersection of tourism geographies and political ecologies of hope in revelatory moments of crisis.     

Destruction of microstructure in archaeological bone: a case study from Portugal

Sampling of archaeological human bone may not be justified, contrary to former high expectations regarding adult age assessment based on histomorphometry. The alterations in buried bone as a result of bacterial action are readily visible in the scanning electron microscope (SEM). An understanding of the chemical and structural changes to cortical bone requires work at the level of a few microns. This paper reports on problems encountered during analyses of samples of human bone from Mesolithic (ca. 8000 calbp) shell midden sites at Muge in central Portugal, and the methods used to try and overcome these problems. We believe we have shown that these Mesolithic bones are partly comprised of bacterially reprecipitated mineral, which has had collagen removed, with consequent obliteration of bone microstructure. We conclude that microbial destruction of the structure of archaeological bone can be a serious impediment to analysis of the characteristics of the population represented by those skeletal remains. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.